The journey to the last tier two beastnode was dull. But Din and Jao enjoyed it, treating it like a vacation from their stressful duties back at camp.

It wasn’t until they had to go off the beaten path that the charm of it all was diminished. This was when Din had the brilliant idea of stationing themselves at the back of the troop.

After repositioning themselves, they could enjoy the stroll through the jungle. In particular they examined any foreign plantlife they found.

The smaller critters were frightened by the commotion but also curious, allowing people to spot a few small beasts skittering about. Jao mentioned she wanted a pet.

This was still impossible. For some reason the beasts were extremely resistant to domestication.

Din had high hopes for domesticating the offsprings of various beasts. This endeavour was still not bearing any fruit. So Din only shook his head at Jao’s pet inquiry.

Jao didn’t acknowledge his reaction and kept calling out to the critters when they appeared. She was sure that she could attract one.

This casual walk of theirs was beginning to taper off. This was because the troops had begun encountering roaming packs of beasts. Putting a damper on their mood.

It took them half a day getting used to the commotion, after all they had ample experience with the brutal atmosphere. It helped they didn’t find it interesting.

The troops had excellent archers with abilities to match, allowing for a smooth passing. Din and Jao received experience by proxy, matching or exceeding their gains back at camp.

This wasn’t surprising but instead expected. It was perhaps strange that the difference was so small.

Once the fighting began, it wouldn’t end. The longest pause would be measured within the hour. This was the reason that the village was organized as it was. To acclimate people to different sleeping cycles.

Din and Jao didn’t have to follow any such rule but they had already grown accustomed to it. So They would rest according to the schedule.

Even with all the fighting, Din and Jao didn’t act. They weren’t commanding anyone or overseeing the fighting.

Din had even picked up random rocks and sticks to carve. Jao was instead refining the leather skinned of the killed beasts. No one felt this was strange.

It is hard to say what people’s expectations of Din and Jao were. It wasn’t to go out and fight the beasts. Many of the people here hadn’t witnessed Din fight, but they had heard stories.

The stories served Din well. Sometimes they were exaggerated, bordering beyond belief. Even without exaggeration, they were somewhat hard to believe.

Jao was never expected to do anything but be present. Her passive aura left her more revered than Din. This left the two to do nothing but fiddle around.

The days passed by in a flash and today Din had been carving a sizeable rock into a tree. This was one of the smaller trees, not the larger behemoths that never seemed to end.

Jao didn’t feel she had the tools or a suitable workbench for anything advanced. So she began churning out handles. They put these onto bows.

They were popular amongst the women, as Jao had decorated the leather in tasteful patterns. Sometimes embroidered and sometimes burned.

This was something she had begun doing to the smaller items she made. It started with simple patterns. They were not like Din’s scriptions but they were inspired by it.

This meant if she wanted to, she could scribe unrated scribing patterns with a reasonable success rate. It was sad that the patterns she had access to weren’t considered beautiful.

It was because the intention wasn’t to better anything. It was aesthetics. They should be pleasing to the eye. This was the only intention.

Until the very moment the shocking roars and shrieks could be heard, Din and Jao spent their time fiddling around while the men and women fought a war of attrition.

Jao rose to her feet, she looked ahead, trying to locate the origin of the bellowing beasts. Din remained seated but raised his head to look at Jao.

Jao worried for people, so she wanted to see their enemy. Of course she didn’t have to take action, and it would detrimental for her to do so.

Din however did not care in the slightest. He only looked up because Jao had stood up. It was only Jao that could merit this kind of attention from Din.

Once he saw she wasn’t moving, he resumed his delicate engraving. He had begun drafting a new pattern. It was asymmetrical and shallow. It could be considered ugly.

This was a scription pattern that woulda activate once, gathering ambient energy, empowering the item proportionally to the size of the scription and the size of the item.

If it failed, nothing would occur and the item remain a small sculpture. If the completion was successful, it would quickly extract nearby energy.

It would guide the energy to a degree. Which would then settle as well as it could. This meant it was now imbued. Allowing it a passive defence fueled by the energy.

This defence could be considered its durability. The durability is the ratio of innate quality of the material, density and quantity of energy imbued into it.

Quality being the purity while density is how concentrated it is and quantity the amount of energy in proportion to the items capability.

Even when the battle met its apex, Din continued carving. Jao stood there still as a statue, worried for the fighters. Only when someone was wounded would she lament.

When the last beast king died, only seventeen people had been wounded. Only one of the wounded could be considered sever. But even then, no one died.

This was because this particular group had too much offensive power. Their aim true and the power behind every projectile a degree higher than their peers.

Jao happily went to inspect the beast kings corpses. This was fine leather. It was a scarce resource. Even Jao’s status, she couldn’t get enough of it.

This was because not only would the material be harmed by hundreds to thousands of arrows, the people skinning them didn’t have adequate ability to harvest it.

In the end only a portion of an entire beast’s hide would be considered in perfect condition. Then she had to make sure it was delivered to her and not some other crafter.

Over the past few months it had become something of a belief that only with untouched beast king hide could they create a tier one recipe.

Jao had such lofty ambitions. She also liked the prestige of it. It was the best of the best. And only she and a select few had the right to possess such things. This was how she felt.

Din acted in a similar way. He would use the best materials and tools. Going so far as to create a special division that focused on making tools for his sculpting and engravings.

They even made burners for Jao so she could burn patterns into leather. Along with specialized needles that could pierce beast king hide. These were all rare things and difficult to make.

The shop of course offered a variety of tools. But these tools were inferior to what the people made. It was inferior by design. People only required mediocre talent to surpass the shop’s wares.

While Jao carefully carved out the most desirable hide, Din was reading the alerts. Like before they told him the experience bonus had been increased.

The village was uplifted a tier. Tier three village, stationed in an un unrated zone.

Majority of the information was repetition of previous messages. Only the ratios of experiences gain had increased.

There were some buildings made available. Din would build them once he returned. This is what he planned to do.

It wasn’t until he gleamed at the information of one of the buildings that his expression changed. He went from a charming half smile to a blank stare.

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It is hard to remain dignified when surprised and concentrating. But somehow Din held a regal disposition that gave of the feeling of self reproach, as if he was mocking himself.

He wasn’t scolding himself, he was shocked and due to his bearings, managed to hold onto his concentration. Allowing him to persevere and continue reading.

‘A lot of things make sense now.’

What Din was reading, was a lackluster summary. This message alluded to returning home. How that would be done was omitted.

‘This isn’t Earth after all.’

It seemed like an obvious thing. But this was the first time it sunk in and settled.

‘It was all planned.’

For the first time Din had a concrete explanation as to why his own father asked for his life. But to Din it was only a fleeting realization.

He already knew his father was infallible and only working for the great upheaval of the Laq Docte. It was never in question, there was never any doubt.

What Din was thinking instead was his upbringing. His cousins and elders. It made more sense now. The more he thought on it, the more it made sense.

‘I was right all along. I am here to spread the will of Laq Docte.’

Din no longer had a blank stare but one of deep reverence. He went through his memories and only stopped to praise the immaculate preparations.

‘My cousins, brothers and sisters must be here. They are probably all creating places of their own.’

To Din, it was the most reasonable thing. If any Laq Docte were on this world with him, they would be doing what he was doing. Digging a deep hole in fertile soil, planting deep roots.

After an intense reverie. Din managed to read the alerts in their entirety. Leaving only tidbits of inane information.

‘I have to return home. They will have answers.’

Din continued this line of thinking. Assuring himself that with the ancestors wisdom and through the families infallible means, they would have predicted this outcome.

He was also assured that this was the path he should take. He would break new ground and report home. Ready for whatever plans they had in store.

After understanding what he should do, he reminisced. In particular he examined the moment he threw himself of that high rise. The feeling of martyrdom that surged through him.

It was a type of high he hadn’t experienced before. Now he felt it again, it wasn’t the same but similar. He relished it.

This type of feeling didn’t lay further foundation to his firm believes. Instead, reinforced it. He even felt like like discarding his carvings. They were nothing after all.

Unconsciously he had begun relying on the carvings as a way to express himself. He didn't know when or how. But now that the thought of discarding it came to his mind, he felt conflicted.

The rarity of this cannot be undermined, to cast it away is to throw away any opportunity he had to become his own person.

While Din didn’t realize the severity of the situation, he did feel something new, something strange. It was a strong contrast to his previous zealous high.

This befuddled swirl of emotions, left him in a vulnerable state. He was confused, happy and sad.

“Look!”

It wasn’t until these simple words reached him that Din snapped out of this uncomfortable state. He looked up to see Jao.

“Perfect condition. What should I make?”

The large piece of leather was almost too much for her to told up. Her bright eyes and smile were at odds with her bloodied clothes. Even her face had smears on it.

‘...’

Surprisingly Din was drawing a blank. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Jao was near covered in blood. It looked like a disaster had struck. It was only her demeanor that indicated otherwise.

“We need to work it right here. We can’t go back until it’s been processed.”

Jao was caught up in her own atmosphere. She really did feel satisfied this time around. A large part of the beast was completely untouched. Due to the aim and power of the archers.

She didn’t even dare image that she could get so much material. Her guards were wearing awkward smiles. She had somehow managed to carve out this piece of leather.

Perhaps because of the time they spent together, the first things she wanted to was show it off to someone. Only one she knew that could appreciate it was Din.

Din was coming out of a very vulnerable state. This allowed him to be easily influenced, and when he saw here happy smile and messy look, he couldn’t help but be caught in it.

He took a good look at the large hide.

‘Might be enough to cover the entire house.’

He was referring to their shed. And it was indeed large enough to blanket the entire shed.

“Maybe a carpet?”

“That would be waste! Look how smooth it is. Feel it. It has to be clothes.”

After having his suggestion struck down, Din only smiled and nodded. He saw she was really excited. He didn’t realize that he, himself, was caught up in the atmosphere.

They exchanged a few words before Jao begun wantonly ordering people to set up for the processing. She had to make sure the hide was properly worked.

Din wouldn’t have cared either way but was now especially amenable in his attitude, even if it appeared to remain the same. In the hustle of it all, he resumed his carving.

The time it takes to properly secure this amount of hide was questionable and hard to measure, but Jao would make sure it was enough.

With more downtime on his hands, Din began reading the detail information of things. Skipping only generic boosts to already placed experience bonuses.

‘Difficult but not impossible.’

Din was reading the requirements for some things. It was a bit convoluted. Building A might require something from building B that in turn required something else.

It went down like this until it became too hard to follow. So Din took began carving a tree. Every branch was unique, carrying a sense that it came from a different tree.

He didn’t need to do it this way. He could write it into his device. But Din had ample time. If anything it was what he lacked least.

‘I wonder how long this will take. I think I need more people.’

When he thought it through, it always came back to people. The other option was to cease his conquering. Which he would do. They’d have to cut back on any warring, and play defence.

But even if he had everyone working only on progressing towards this Flag building’s requirements. It would still would come short.

These requirements were things like unlocking a tier of recipe. But in this case not just any recipe but a recipe related to a craft in a specific building.

This was because some buildings needed to be upgraded to even begin working on another requirement. This was how it twizzled around and dove into obscurity.

Din couldn’t help but stop thinking about it and just work through it with his carving. He’d delegate the work to his betters. He, himself, wasn’t suited for this kind of work.

Since he wasn’t suited for it, he’d focus on other things he was suited to do. Like acting as a leader. To make sure the camp was productive where it could be productive.

This didn’t mean he was good at doing that. It just meant that he’d make sure the right people would work at making the camp productive, and they were doing just that.

It may sound like a useless position to hold, but it was one of great importance. Because Din served as a restriction and could make sure prosperity wasn’t being discarded for expediency.

This was another thing derived from the well of wisdom that is the accumulated knowledge of the Laq Docte.

The mantra of patience, seen in the great texts came from the longevity of its original inspiration. The ancestor himself.

It came to fruition due to the wizened age of Din’s great great grandfather. He was too old, yet young still. He retained the youthful appearance reserved for those just about to bloom.

It can be said that it is hard to achieve perpetual youth. And it can be said to be easy. Like most things it’s relevant to the person. And there are few things impossible in this world.

Din spent his days chipping away at his newest creation. He soon realized that this particular piece was too small. He had to toss it aside and get a larger, a rather bulky piece of wood.

His creation, halfmade was picked up by one of Jao’s guardians. She, the guardian, quickly put it away.

Anything made by Din or Jao held some value. She could even sell it to the vendor for some extra points. One reason is due to the fanaticism and other the materials they tend to use.

She received some glares, but she let out a soft grunt and pretended not to notice. Only glancing at Jao, making sure she wasn’t stepping on her toes. Which of course, she wasn’t.

Jao had no time to pay attention to anything but the leather that was being hauled back to camp. Her eyes rarely leaving it. She had become a bit obsessive.

It isn’t surprising. This material would last her a long time. She could work tirelessly for months without running out. It’s value couldn’t be measured. As it was too hard to attain.

On the other end Din was worrying about his new material.

This bulky piece of wood was hard to lug around. Even with added benefits he received for leveling. He was going to put it on top of the wagon carrying Jao’s leather but was stopped.

He felt resigned. They only had three wagons. Two of the three were being used to carry Jao’s leather and the last, perishable food things.

The size of the piece was about ten or so inches taller than him and slightly wider as a whole. This wood was lighter than him, but not light enough.

After careful consideration, he justified having some of the people help him carry it. He thought to himself that it was a way to conceptualize a problem.

With this tree of his, he could make the complexity easier on they eyes. The more he thought this way, the more reasonable it seemed.

This decision wasn’t popular with the people forced to carry Din’s pet project, but they wouldn’t complain. They felt slightly annoyed but also a sense of pride.

The sense of pride came from the fact that Din was the leader of the camp. A saviour figure of sorts. He was eccentric at times, a great artist to some and had a bizarre charm hard to resist.

Just the description alone didn’t sound like he’d make for a good leader. Charm or likeability isn’t required of a good leader. Only perceived as desirable.

Whatever people were feeling, Din didn’t care. He cared about the greater scope. The next ten, hundred or thousand years.

He wouldn’t live to see hundred some years. Yet he felt deep concern about it. He wanted Laq Docte descendants to prosper, and best he could do was create a place where they could.

With the new tier three village, it’s area of influences spread once more. This locked in more smaller unrated support nodes, both occupied and not.

There was one tier one village, just starting to spread their influence, aiming for tier two.

Whatever it was, Din was happy to see the constant flow of people joining his village. The bonus experience he gained from these small nodes, were negligible at this point.

What he desperately needed was more people. More people meant more people crafting. It was impossible for Din to predict how long it would take to achieve his new goal.

He wanted to build this flag building and satisfy a specific requirement within it. This flag building was a means of travel. It was expensive for the most generic of purposes, but even more so for what he wanted to do.

The building itself wasn’t too expensive. It did require multiple such buildings to have any use, aside from his grand aspirations.

This building is meant to teleport people and goods from one such building to another. The basic requirement is having two such buildings and the resource points to activate it.

The limitations included a set distance required between two Flag buildings and that they be within Din’s territory.

But what Din wanted didn’t need either of these things. He needed to upgrade the building and then pay a price to travel back and forth from this place and back to Earth.

There were limitations to this as well. Any one person can only return to their own home planet, and no other planet. They could stay permanently and never return here, if they choose.

For all intents and purposes, Din and everyone within Din’s domain could return to their home planet if they satisfied the requirements.

While it sounded reasonable. In truth the resource points needed for the travel alone, was beyond even Din at the moment. Perhaps after a few years of accumulating wealth, could Din afford it.

On the way back, Din and Jao continued to fiddle with their respective hobbies. While they couldn’t quantify it, they felt the experience was multitudes higher than before.

The esoteric feeling only those that met an experience bottleneck could know. To them the sensation was like a calm creak becoming a raging river.

While Din wasn’t as concerned about increasing his levels he was intrigued by it, so he did take note of it and did keep it in mind. There were others, like First that took it very seriously.

The type of people that chased after experience at all cost were the type of person that sought to increase their personal strength.

This was a type of personal obsession, a pursuit of power that Din couldn’t relate to. Jao also couldn’t relate to these people but she still encouraged them, as she did for most things.

When it came to a duel, these people would excel but in wartimes, it was quantity over quality that mattered.

Even if their influence could change an outcome of a war, it was through strategy and command. It came from boosting morale, something a great leader would do.

That is what First and his men did inspire to do in some sense. They felt a strong sense of camaraderie and wanted their men and women to fight to the best of their ability.

The most effective tool on the battlefield was the strategy conjured by those capable of entertaining and developing abstract thoughts.

There are too many variables involved in a war for a hot headed warrior to take into account. It was instead the cold blooded, calm strategists that would assure success.

In a war like Din’s, such strategies were not needed. Their biggest problem was logistics. Delicate rotations of fighting and rest. Food for the entire troop.

Near all battles Din and his people fought were with simple beasts. It was a war of attrition rather than one of exceptional strategy.

And because the wars were simple, Din could split up his forces. Their superior firepower allowed them completed dominance.

These times would change now, Din wasn’t going to expand his territory for a period. But even then he’d have to keep training people and make sure any invasion was dealt with.